October 4, 2010 • 23 mins
In this episode, Molly and Cristen list five of the most iconic cosmetics in the history of modern makeup.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Well like today
we're talking about iconic cosmetics. An article that was written
(00:24):
for How Stuff Works by you. That's true. Actually, in
the intro of the article talks about Mary Kay, right
because I saw her that pink Cadillac. That's just you know,
an icon of the cosmetics world in its own right.
Just write the fact that's not actually a cosmetic Yes,
And I thought that I would I would share for
a moment about how Mary Kay was a milestone in
(00:45):
my own life. Yeah. Well, I don't know if i'd
call it a guiding force, but certainly a significant chapter
in my girlhood because my mother did um this thing
for me, and me and my sisters were sort this
rite of passage for us. We had at twelve years old,
we got our ears pierced and then they get like
thirteen or something. The Mary Kay consultant came over to
(01:09):
the house for each of you and taught us how
to put makeup on Yeah. It was kind of the
sign that okay, you are becoming a woman. Now cover
your face stuff as fast as possible with makeup. Um.
So yeah, so what do you remember of your time
with the Mary Kay lady. Well, you know, we sat
down that the breakfast room table and she put I
(01:30):
just remember wanting to explore her makeup bag because she
brought over all so many samples and so many different colors.
And I mean we really only did the boring stuff
like how to put on concealer and how to put
on foundation and all of that, and I wanted to,
you know, go crazy with my shadow. But those are
vital life lessons, Christmas, myilelife lessons that apparently I didn't
(01:50):
take to heart too much, well because I don't really
know how to put makeup on my face. Now, did
you get to purchase a bunch of Mary Kay cosmetics
after your session? Yeah, I kind of got the starter kit,
you know, just really basic stuff. I mean it was
pretty young, so I wasn't wearing lip lipsticks. You weren't
all not quite yet. That was four, so so that's
(02:15):
very interesting. So you were influenced by this worldwide brand
of makeup. I think the Mary kay story is pretty impressive.
She started the company in nineteen three when she was
forty five, with just five thousand dollars in savings. Five
years later, the company has passed a million dollar sales mark.
And that's when she decided to go get that pink
Cadillac that she still get that the company still gives
(02:38):
to the top performers. And uh, she got that color
because she pulled out a compact and said this color.
I want my car in this color, which is pretty
pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I hope to one
day have the means to just walk into a dealership
and point to something random and be like, get me
something that I wholeheardly believe that will happen. Molly, um So,
(03:01):
But moving on from Mary Kay, because you know Mary
Kay Cosmetics, Well, yes, the brand itself is somewhat iconic
in its own way. We're talking about specific cosmetics that
really revolutionized I don't know, what would you say, Molly,
the world, the world? Yeah, or at least our makeup bags. Sure, yeah,
(03:21):
because this is one that I have in mind and
that my mother had in hers, and I just this
is what I grew up with. Oil of Olay, or
as it is technically known. That's right. Um. It is
the best selling skincare product in the world. And it
was developed by this guy, Graham Wolfe, who wanted to
(03:43):
develop a better facial cream for his wife Dina. He
was a chemist in South Africa and he um basically
took this newfound knowledge about lanolin and applied it to
face cream. Yeah, and I think that this is gonna
be sort of a recurring pattern. We'll see this podcast
of men listening to the women in their lives to
(04:03):
come up with better makeup products. Because he saw the
wife Dina just putting on these really thick, greasy facial
creams every night, and he figured there had to be
something that would look natural, that would still protect the skin.
They would hold him moisture, but that you just want
to be able to see um. And so Dinah had
to serve as his guinea pig all through is testing.
You know, he would whip up something in the lab
(04:25):
and try They tried that on and finally he said
on the perfect formula for what he called a beauty fluid,
because uh, it made a woman beautiful. You couldn't see it.
It just gave her that glow that finished she needed
and called that moisture in Yeah, and the and the
logic behind his beauty fluid was to make it as
close to the skin's own sea bum or its natural
(04:47):
oil as possible. Hence you know the oil of a
lay name. And it's it's kind of a nice little
husband wife duo invention story too, because they not only
worked on the duct together, just like the actual formulation,
but also worked on how well it absorbed into the
skin and the texture, the color that iconic pink shade,
(05:09):
and and then also the fragrance and all those factors
have combined together to make it, as Kristen said, the
best selling skincare product in the world. I launched in
South Africa and nineteen fifty three and now it's a
huge worldwide brand. It's everywhere. And I did go by
different names when it was in different world wide markets.
But in two thousand, company that owned it said it's
(05:33):
not just gonna be l a and so it has been.
Now let's move on to iconic cosmetic number four. Kristen.
I chose Revlon Fire and Ice when I was writing
this article. And when I read this article, I hadn't
heard of Revlon Fire and eyes before. But I think
it's such a great It's such a great story because
(05:55):
Revlon started out in ninety two as Soul selling nail polish,
and it was pretty good nail polished because other nail
polishes of the time were made with pigments and this
nail poloshes madeould die, so it would go on smoother,
it would last longer. It was a very high quality product.
And uh in it's that's when Revlon was like, hey,
(06:17):
well we'll do lipsticks to match this. And they were
really smart about advertising. And that's part of the reason
why I found the Revlon story so compelling, because they
were just so smart about advertising all the way through
those early years when they had those lipstick nail polished duos,
they would um time the release to the fashion launches
because if there were women who couldn't afford the latest fashion,
(06:40):
they could still feel a little fashionable by splurging on
this lipstick nail polish duo. And we've talked about the
lipstick indicator before. This guy was right on the money
and that if women just have a little bit of
minus spend it can spend it on lipstick. Yeah, and
Revlon really made UM made the idea of this lipstick
nail polished combo to be an actual fashion scessory, not
(07:00):
just something you know, something you just buy the drug store,
something that you needed to complete that perfect outfit. And
then in ninety two the company just exploded with this
marketing campaign called Fire and Ice. And a lot of
the backstory on this advertising campaign comes from a book
(07:22):
called Fire and Ice by Andrew Tobias, which tells the
story of Charles Revson, who was sort of the genius
behind all these marketing efforts. And what Revson does is
he creates what what Tobias believes is the first campaign
to link makeup and sex directly. It seems pretty natural now,
(07:42):
but first one who did that. And what he did
was he came up with all these questions in the
advertisement to uh, to help a woman figure out if
she was a Fire and Ice girl? Are you made
for Fire and Ice? In the model Dorian Lee was
dressed in this you really getting tight, gorgeous evening gown
and she had this this bright red lipstick and uh
(08:06):
a nail polish on that really popped off of this
this sparkling white silver gown. Anah, And so then they
would ask you these questions such as, Molly, you're ready
for if you ever want to find out? If you
want to ask me? Okay, Kristen, have you ever danced
with your shoes off? Yes? You might be a fire
and ice s girl. You have to answer yes to
eight of these fifteen, which will run through. We're like quick,
(08:28):
so just keep talk at home about if you can
get to eight. Have you every ansd with your shoes off?
With one? Do you ever wish on a new moon? Kristen? No?
I don't think I do you? Okay? Do you blush
when you find yourself flirting? Unfortunately? When a recipe calls
for one dash of bitters? Do you think it's better
with two? I don't drink things with bitter. That seems
(08:49):
old fashioned and of the nineteen fifties? When which is
when this ad came out? Okay, this is a juicy one.
Do you secretly hope the next man you meet will
be a psychiatrist? No, because then he'll be able to
instantly detect my inner flaws. Do you sometimes feel that
other women resent you? No? No? Have you ever wanted
(09:13):
to wear an ankle bracelet? What if it was an ankle? Ankle? Alcohol?
Monitoring bracelet. Well in that case. Okay, here's another one
that I think you can tell that this was very
much in nineteen fifties ad campaign and not a politically
correct one. Do sables or furs excite you even on
other women? Oh? Yes, Molly. Do you love to look
(09:35):
up at a man? I'm kind of tall, so when
it happens, I guess it's kind of nice. Do you
face crowded parties with panic then wind up having a
wonderful time? I hope? So? Does gypsy music make you sad?
I cried myself to sleep every night listening to gypsy music?
Do you think any man really understands you? Would you
(10:00):
streak your hair with platinum without consulting your husband? I
wouldn't do anything without consulting my husband. If tourists flights
for running, would you take a trip to March I'm
a little scared of No, I don't think it was
don't like otter space? Do you close your eyes when
you're kissed? Yes? So those are the fifteen questions. I
(10:21):
felt really bashful about answering that last one, starting to
get little, a little personal, but that's what Reps was
trying to do. He was trying to aim at all
these you know, brash, kind of confident things about women
in the fifties, that what they would want to either
if they if they didn't embody them now, it was
the ideal of what you would want to embody at
(10:42):
that time. And Tobias points out that at the at
the time, there was this idea of European women being
really provocative and sexy and all of this. In American
women were kind of just being being left out. But
they certainly weren't excited by sables, and they get their
eyes open when they guessed all sorts of things, and
(11:02):
so they wanted to play on this, this idea of
American women being being just as exciting and attractive as
European women, and it worked. That campaign is is that
year it won Best Advertising Campaign of the Year, and
then you know, since that time has been heralded as
one of the most unique advertising campaigns in terms of
selling makeup to women. Now, speaking of selling makeup to women, Kristen,
(11:27):
here's a tagline you may have heard over and over again.
Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's maple leene. I
do indeed know that tagline. I feel like We've been
bombarded with that tagline, but I was surprised to learn
that it only came into being in Isn't that insane?
It is kind of crazy considering that T. L. Williams,
(11:48):
who came up with Mabel and Cosmetics, actually started out
in nineteen thirteen working on a new kind of um
mascara for his sister Mabel. Right again, another example of
of a man paying attention to a woman's needs. Because
Mabel would use petroleum jelly and coal dust to make
her eyelashes look dramatic, and old TL was like, this
(12:11):
seems like a pretty good product. I'm gonna I'm gonna
form this company to market it. And at first he
sold mascara is just like a cake that you kind
of like painted on. But by the nineties sixties they've
got the tubes with the brush applicators, becoming the first
mass market and mascara to use that feature. And today
(12:31):
it's estimated that every two seconds, at least one tube
of Mabeling Great Lash mascara is sold in the United
States every two seconds, So imagine the number. How many
how long have you been podcasting, I don't know, so
much has been sold. That's how I'm going to measure
units of my life from now on. Yes, So I
guess if it's every two seconds, then one minute is
thirty and Mabeling Great Lashes. So you want to meet
(12:55):
up for a drink in thirty Mabeling Great Lashes. That's
an example play that I see. One thing I'd say
too that uh, Mabeling mascara has in common with the
Revlon Fire and Ice Snail Polish lipstick combo, is that
Mabeling was really successful at turning this one small cosmetic
(13:16):
into that, you know, that lipstick, that little luxury that
women can have. There's an article in the New York
Times talking about the mascara industry and in two thousand six,
Americans spent almost one point three billion dollars on it.
It's insane, Yeah, one point three billion dollars, which was
(13:36):
sent increase over So we're buying more and more mascara.
And it makes sense because it seems like every time you,
you know, turn on the TV or flip through women's magazine,
there's some new, insane kind of mascare that's supposed to
make your lashes doubled and tripled and won't smear, and
you know make you the most beautiful woman in the world.
(13:58):
And I will also say Matt Scares the only beauty
product that I can tell when it's gone bad. You
know how you're supposed to really clean out your makeup.
I feel like my scar is the only one I
can tell feel like, oh this needs to go. But
for everyone else who's more savvy about that and writes
the start dates on their cosmetics, then that will just
seem stilly. So that was our number three icon it cosmetic,
(14:19):
the Mabeling mass Scara, and number two is max Factor Pancake. Now,
unlike some of these other cosmetics we've been talking about,
I'd say that pancake has pretty much gone out of
cosmetic vogue. Yeah, I don't really. I don't think I've
ever gone to a cosmetics camera on ourn asked for
any pancake. The only time that I've ever actually used
(14:40):
pancake was when again I was a younger girl and
I would take ballet and when I would have my perform,
when I would perform for the for the masses that
I would have to put on pancake well, and the
makeup was made for performers, it was made for the
stage that makes sense um. And you know what's pretty
cool about Max Factors that it's not just pancake that
(15:02):
makes them an iconic company. They are just associated with
all these first in the world of cosmetics. In fact,
the word makeup is thanks to Max Factor because he
was trying to distinguish it from cosmetics, because back in
the day, in the early twentieth century, cosmetics really didn't
have a very good reputation because it was associated with
(15:25):
actresses and trolls and trollops, and back then being an
actress was not exactly the most well respected um profession
for a woman. And so with the rise of the
movie industry, Max Factor was able to link up this
idea of celebrity and glamour and beauty with makeup, the
(15:46):
first real celebrity endorsement, first real product that regular women
saw on celebrities, and we're like, I want that too,
And so he gets to start making this foundation when
they make the transition from the stage to the screen,
because you need different makeup for both. But then when
Technicolor comes along, the makeup is not looking good in color. Yeah,
(16:08):
it's doing some weird casting, some weird tinting on it.
So in seven he comes up with the Pancake, which
is both transparent but able to cover all those skin perfections.
The Hollywood actresses love it. They demand to take it
home after a movie shoot. And that is when the
regular people see whoa I want, I want what that
celebrity is wearing. Right because before Pancake came out, um,
(16:32):
he came up with this tagline called the Makeup for
the Stars and You, which really linked celebrity and beauty.
Just marketing genius on Max Factor's marketing genius. Now, I
think the idea of linking celebrity and beauty takes us
well into iconic cosmetic number one, which is perfume, specifically
(16:53):
Chanel number five. And the reason it has such a
celebrity connotation is because there's this famous quote from Marle
Monroe that the only thing she wore to bed was
a few drops of Chanelle number five is perhaps one
of the most glamorous perfumes, definitely the best known perfume.
Might say, that's why I put it number one on
the list. I mean, it's a great list. It wins
(17:14):
because not only is the perfume famous, but the bottle's famous.
Andy Warhol would paint it and do screen work of it.
And you know, here's another way to measure time. Every
fifty five seconds a bottle of Chanelle number five is
sold somewhere in the world. Some of you could be like,
I'll meet you in h in a great lash and
two Chanel's yeah, I like it. I'm sure no one
(17:37):
else at all. But it's been around since nine one
and it was developed by Coco Chanel and a perfumer,
Ernest Bow. And what's kind of interesting. And Chanelle had
no interest in doing perfumes. She thought that they were superficial, distasteful.
She thought that these people just need to take a
(17:58):
bath instead of putting on something that disguise their smell. Right,
because at that time, all of the perfumes were pretty
much flower sense, like really really heavy flower sense, with
really ornate bottles and kind of frilly names, and Coco
Chanelle was not really into that. She was not free
through at all. So um, what actually attracts her to
(18:19):
the perfume world is not just that one scent of something,
but rather her perfumer brings her this idea of alde
hides or in synthetic ingredients. And I think it's kind
of interesting that you know, today, I think we're all
about natural products, all natural and this successful perfume is
made from synthetics, but they're synthetics that happened to bring
(18:40):
out the natural smell of something uh more strongly or
more robustly. And the two main fragrances in Sanielle number
five are jasmine and rose. But there was an article
that also points out that the Chanel number five is
the world's first abstract fragrance. You can't really pinpoint what
Chanel number five smells like. It doesn't smell like lilies
(19:02):
or strawberries or what have you. And I think also
when you use the word abstract, I think the other
four cosmetics we've talked about Kristen are very much um
women's centered. They very much talk about what it means
to be a woman, and so did the advertising campaigns
just to distinctly, especially if you think about like fire
and ice, it's like this is a woman, this is
a woman, and Chanelle was pretty much the opposite of that.
(19:23):
Despite the fact that she is such a emblem of
femininity today and even though we just talked about how
you can't pinpoint what Sanelle number five smells like, the
new York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr, I think does
a pretty poetic job at least getting us in the
general direction. So he said that Chanelle number five hits
(19:46):
you like a bank of white hot searchlights washing the
powdered stars at a movie premiere in cans on a
dry summer night. If you haven't smelled it in a while,
do so again. It's great to bathe in that light.
That's really I think the description every woman wants attributed
to her absolutely white hot lights. So that's our list.
(20:07):
That was the five iconic cosmetics that we came up
with after this research. The article is on how stuff
works dot com. But that doesn't mean those are the
only five cosmetics that are iconic. You might have your
own list, and if so, we want to hear it.
Send us an email at mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com. And I think we've got time for
a listener email or to Kristen. Sure well, I've got
(20:30):
one here from Celia about our podcast on chivalry. She said,
when I first started dating, I never felt comfortable with
guys paying for my movie tickets, dinners or drinks. To
solve this, if he paid for dinner, I paid for
the movies, or I tried to leave the tip. After all,
I know how hard I work for my money. I've
treated friends and boyfriends to dinner and they've treated me,
(20:51):
But when on a first date, I always feel very
uncomfortable knowing that he's paying for everything. I've always been
pretty pretty firm about my stance because the idea of
being taken care of by a man for no other
reason than his being a man and my being a
woman makes me so uneasy. Now I'm in a long
term relationship, so it's not really an issue. All of
our money has been pulled together, so if I use
(21:11):
my debit card or he uses his, it comes out
of the same account. All right, Interesting, and I have
one from Marcus and the same basically the same amial
is also sent to us by our listener Jane, and
perhaps many more listeners by the time this one actually airs.
Is about the Celibacy podcast Kristen. All right. And despite
the fact that we, oh, I know where that this
is going. Yeah, despite the fact that we've based the
(21:34):
entire episode on some Seinfeld episodes, we did get a
few factors on Seinfeld all mixed up, and I think
the problem is is that I tend to watch the
reruns they're on, like really late at night, and I
just saw it starts to get jumbled in your dream world.
I probably shouldn't make excuses, but I will read what
our adept Seinfeld listeners let us know. First off, you
(21:55):
stated that George was the one offended by the double dipper,
when actually George was the one double dipping his girlfriend's relative,
a brother, I think, but it may have been a
cousin accused George of double dipping in a funeral and
they ended up finding a knocking over the casket. Secondly,
George becomes celibate because his girlfriend thinks she has mono,
and the process of becoming celibate, he becomes smarter. Elaine
(22:15):
is dating a man who can't pass his medical exam,
so she cuts him off. He passes the exam and
dumps her. The Master of Your Domain episode where they
make a bet about who can withhold from gratify themselves
along as is a completely different episode. So there you go.
Sorry about the Seinfeld errors works, but if you spot
any errors or just have something to say to us,
(22:37):
let us know. It's mom stuff at how stuff works.
Dot com. You can also find us on Facebook and
on Twitter. And we have a blog that's also called
stuff on or told You, and you can find that
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, chuck out our
(23:00):
blogs on the housetope works dot com home page. Brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. Well like today
we're talking about iconic cosmetics. An article that was written
(00:24):
for How Stuff Works by you. That's true. Actually, in
the intro of the article talks about Mary Kay, right
because I saw her that pink Cadillac. That's just you know,
an icon of the cosmetics world in its own right.
Just write the fact that's not actually a cosmetic Yes,
And I thought that I would I would share for
a moment about how Mary Kay was a milestone in
(00:45):
my own life. Yeah. Well, I don't know if i'd
call it a guiding force, but certainly a significant chapter
in my girlhood because my mother did um this thing
for me, and me and my sisters were sort this
rite of passage for us. We had at twelve years old,
we got our ears pierced and then they get like
thirteen or something. The Mary Kay consultant came over to
(01:09):
the house for each of you and taught us how
to put makeup on Yeah. It was kind of the
sign that okay, you are becoming a woman. Now cover
your face stuff as fast as possible with makeup. Um.
So yeah, so what do you remember of your time
with the Mary Kay lady. Well, you know, we sat
down that the breakfast room table and she put I
(01:30):
just remember wanting to explore her makeup bag because she
brought over all so many samples and so many different colors.
And I mean we really only did the boring stuff
like how to put on concealer and how to put
on foundation and all of that, and I wanted to,
you know, go crazy with my shadow. But those are
vital life lessons, Christmas, myilelife lessons that apparently I didn't
(01:50):
take to heart too much, well because I don't really
know how to put makeup on my face. Now, did
you get to purchase a bunch of Mary Kay cosmetics
after your session? Yeah, I kind of got the starter kit,
you know, just really basic stuff. I mean it was
pretty young, so I wasn't wearing lip lipsticks. You weren't
all not quite yet. That was four, so so that's
(02:15):
very interesting. So you were influenced by this worldwide brand
of makeup. I think the Mary kay story is pretty impressive.
She started the company in nineteen three when she was
forty five, with just five thousand dollars in savings. Five
years later, the company has passed a million dollar sales mark.
And that's when she decided to go get that pink
Cadillac that she still get that the company still gives
(02:38):
to the top performers. And uh, she got that color
because she pulled out a compact and said this color.
I want my car in this color, which is pretty
pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I hope to one
day have the means to just walk into a dealership
and point to something random and be like, get me
something that I wholeheardly believe that will happen. Molly, um So,
(03:01):
But moving on from Mary Kay, because you know Mary
Kay Cosmetics, Well, yes, the brand itself is somewhat iconic
in its own way. We're talking about specific cosmetics that
really revolutionized I don't know, what would you say, Molly,
the world, the world? Yeah, or at least our makeup bags. Sure, yeah,
(03:21):
because this is one that I have in mind and
that my mother had in hers, and I just this
is what I grew up with. Oil of Olay, or
as it is technically known. That's right. Um. It is
the best selling skincare product in the world. And it
was developed by this guy, Graham Wolfe, who wanted to
(03:43):
develop a better facial cream for his wife Dina. He
was a chemist in South Africa and he um basically
took this newfound knowledge about lanolin and applied it to
face cream. Yeah, and I think that this is gonna
be sort of a recurring pattern. We'll see this podcast
of men listening to the women in their lives to
(04:03):
come up with better makeup products. Because he saw the
wife Dina just putting on these really thick, greasy facial
creams every night, and he figured there had to be
something that would look natural, that would still protect the skin.
They would hold him moisture, but that you just want
to be able to see um. And so Dinah had
to serve as his guinea pig all through is testing.
You know, he would whip up something in the lab
(04:25):
and try They tried that on and finally he said
on the perfect formula for what he called a beauty fluid,
because uh, it made a woman beautiful. You couldn't see it.
It just gave her that glow that finished she needed
and called that moisture in Yeah, and the and the
logic behind his beauty fluid was to make it as
close to the skin's own sea bum or its natural
(04:47):
oil as possible. Hence you know the oil of a
lay name. And it's it's kind of a nice little
husband wife duo invention story too, because they not only
worked on the duct together, just like the actual formulation,
but also worked on how well it absorbed into the
skin and the texture, the color that iconic pink shade,
(05:09):
and and then also the fragrance and all those factors
have combined together to make it, as Kristen said, the
best selling skincare product in the world. I launched in
South Africa and nineteen fifty three and now it's a
huge worldwide brand. It's everywhere. And I did go by
different names when it was in different world wide markets.
But in two thousand, company that owned it said it's
(05:33):
not just gonna be l a and so it has been.
Now let's move on to iconic cosmetic number four. Kristen.
I chose Revlon Fire and Ice when I was writing
this article. And when I read this article, I hadn't
heard of Revlon Fire and eyes before. But I think
it's such a great It's such a great story because
(05:55):
Revlon started out in ninety two as Soul selling nail polish,
and it was pretty good nail polished because other nail
polishes of the time were made with pigments and this
nail poloshes madeould die, so it would go on smoother,
it would last longer. It was a very high quality product.
And uh in it's that's when Revlon was like, hey,
(06:17):
well we'll do lipsticks to match this. And they were
really smart about advertising. And that's part of the reason
why I found the Revlon story so compelling, because they
were just so smart about advertising all the way through
those early years when they had those lipstick nail polished duos,
they would um time the release to the fashion launches
because if there were women who couldn't afford the latest fashion,
(06:40):
they could still feel a little fashionable by splurging on
this lipstick nail polish duo. And we've talked about the
lipstick indicator before. This guy was right on the money
and that if women just have a little bit of
minus spend it can spend it on lipstick. Yeah, and
Revlon really made UM made the idea of this lipstick
nail polished combo to be an actual fashion scessory, not
(07:00):
just something you know, something you just buy the drug store,
something that you needed to complete that perfect outfit. And
then in ninety two the company just exploded with this
marketing campaign called Fire and Ice. And a lot of
the backstory on this advertising campaign comes from a book
(07:22):
called Fire and Ice by Andrew Tobias, which tells the
story of Charles Revson, who was sort of the genius
behind all these marketing efforts. And what Revson does is
he creates what what Tobias believes is the first campaign
to link makeup and sex directly. It seems pretty natural now,
(07:42):
but first one who did that. And what he did
was he came up with all these questions in the
advertisement to uh, to help a woman figure out if
she was a Fire and Ice girl? Are you made
for Fire and Ice? In the model Dorian Lee was
dressed in this you really getting tight, gorgeous evening gown
and she had this this bright red lipstick and uh
(08:06):
a nail polish on that really popped off of this
this sparkling white silver gown. Anah, And so then they
would ask you these questions such as, Molly, you're ready
for if you ever want to find out? If you
want to ask me? Okay, Kristen, have you ever danced
with your shoes off? Yes? You might be a fire
and ice s girl. You have to answer yes to
eight of these fifteen, which will run through. We're like quick,
(08:28):
so just keep talk at home about if you can
get to eight. Have you every ansd with your shoes off?
With one? Do you ever wish on a new moon? Kristen? No?
I don't think I do you? Okay? Do you blush
when you find yourself flirting? Unfortunately? When a recipe calls
for one dash of bitters? Do you think it's better
with two? I don't drink things with bitter. That seems
(08:49):
old fashioned and of the nineteen fifties? When which is
when this ad came out? Okay, this is a juicy one.
Do you secretly hope the next man you meet will
be a psychiatrist? No, because then he'll be able to
instantly detect my inner flaws. Do you sometimes feel that
other women resent you? No? No? Have you ever wanted
(09:13):
to wear an ankle bracelet? What if it was an ankle? Ankle? Alcohol?
Monitoring bracelet. Well in that case. Okay, here's another one
that I think you can tell that this was very
much in nineteen fifties ad campaign and not a politically
correct one. Do sables or furs excite you even on
other women? Oh? Yes, Molly. Do you love to look
(09:35):
up at a man? I'm kind of tall, so when
it happens, I guess it's kind of nice. Do you
face crowded parties with panic then wind up having a
wonderful time? I hope? So? Does gypsy music make you sad?
I cried myself to sleep every night listening to gypsy music?
Do you think any man really understands you? Would you
(10:00):
streak your hair with platinum without consulting your husband? I
wouldn't do anything without consulting my husband. If tourists flights
for running, would you take a trip to March I'm
a little scared of No, I don't think it was
don't like otter space? Do you close your eyes when
you're kissed? Yes? So those are the fifteen questions. I
(10:21):
felt really bashful about answering that last one, starting to
get little, a little personal, but that's what Reps was
trying to do. He was trying to aim at all
these you know, brash, kind of confident things about women
in the fifties, that what they would want to either
if they if they didn't embody them now, it was
the ideal of what you would want to embody at
(10:42):
that time. And Tobias points out that at the at
the time, there was this idea of European women being
really provocative and sexy and all of this. In American
women were kind of just being being left out. But
they certainly weren't excited by sables, and they get their
eyes open when they guessed all sorts of things, and
(11:02):
so they wanted to play on this, this idea of
American women being being just as exciting and attractive as
European women, and it worked. That campaign is is that
year it won Best Advertising Campaign of the Year, and
then you know, since that time has been heralded as
one of the most unique advertising campaigns in terms of
selling makeup to women. Now, speaking of selling makeup to women, Kristen,
(11:27):
here's a tagline you may have heard over and over again.
Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's maple leene. I
do indeed know that tagline. I feel like We've been
bombarded with that tagline, but I was surprised to learn
that it only came into being in Isn't that insane?
It is kind of crazy considering that T. L. Williams,
(11:48):
who came up with Mabel and Cosmetics, actually started out
in nineteen thirteen working on a new kind of um
mascara for his sister Mabel. Right again, another example of
of a man paying attention to a woman's needs. Because
Mabel would use petroleum jelly and coal dust to make
her eyelashes look dramatic, and old TL was like, this
(12:11):
seems like a pretty good product. I'm gonna I'm gonna
form this company to market it. And at first he
sold mascara is just like a cake that you kind
of like painted on. But by the nineties sixties they've
got the tubes with the brush applicators, becoming the first
mass market and mascara to use that feature. And today
(12:31):
it's estimated that every two seconds, at least one tube
of Mabeling Great Lash mascara is sold in the United
States every two seconds, So imagine the number. How many
how long have you been podcasting, I don't know, so
much has been sold. That's how I'm going to measure
units of my life from now on. Yes, So I
guess if it's every two seconds, then one minute is
thirty and Mabeling Great Lashes. So you want to meet
(12:55):
up for a drink in thirty Mabeling Great Lashes. That's
an example play that I see. One thing I'd say
too that uh, Mabeling mascara has in common with the
Revlon Fire and Ice Snail Polish lipstick combo, is that
Mabeling was really successful at turning this one small cosmetic
(13:16):
into that, you know, that lipstick, that little luxury that
women can have. There's an article in the New York
Times talking about the mascara industry and in two thousand six,
Americans spent almost one point three billion dollars on it.
It's insane, Yeah, one point three billion dollars, which was
(13:36):
sent increase over So we're buying more and more mascara.
And it makes sense because it seems like every time you,
you know, turn on the TV or flip through women's magazine,
there's some new, insane kind of mascare that's supposed to
make your lashes doubled and tripled and won't smear, and
you know make you the most beautiful woman in the world.
(13:58):
And I will also say Matt Scares the only beauty
product that I can tell when it's gone bad. You
know how you're supposed to really clean out your makeup.
I feel like my scar is the only one I
can tell feel like, oh this needs to go. But
for everyone else who's more savvy about that and writes
the start dates on their cosmetics, then that will just
seem stilly. So that was our number three icon it cosmetic,
(14:19):
the Mabeling mass Scara, and number two is max Factor Pancake. Now,
unlike some of these other cosmetics we've been talking about,
I'd say that pancake has pretty much gone out of
cosmetic vogue. Yeah, I don't really. I don't think I've
ever gone to a cosmetics camera on ourn asked for
any pancake. The only time that I've ever actually used
(14:40):
pancake was when again I was a younger girl and
I would take ballet and when I would have my perform,
when I would perform for the for the masses that
I would have to put on pancake well, and the
makeup was made for performers, it was made for the
stage that makes sense um. And you know what's pretty
cool about Max Factors that it's not just pancake that
(15:02):
makes them an iconic company. They are just associated with
all these first in the world of cosmetics. In fact,
the word makeup is thanks to Max Factor because he
was trying to distinguish it from cosmetics, because back in
the day, in the early twentieth century, cosmetics really didn't
have a very good reputation because it was associated with
(15:25):
actresses and trolls and trollops, and back then being an
actress was not exactly the most well respected um profession
for a woman. And so with the rise of the
movie industry, Max Factor was able to link up this
idea of celebrity and glamour and beauty with makeup, the
(15:46):
first real celebrity endorsement, first real product that regular women
saw on celebrities, and we're like, I want that too,
And so he gets to start making this foundation when
they make the transition from the stage to the screen,
because you need different makeup for both. But then when
Technicolor comes along, the makeup is not looking good in color. Yeah,
(16:08):
it's doing some weird casting, some weird tinting on it.
So in seven he comes up with the Pancake, which
is both transparent but able to cover all those skin perfections.
The Hollywood actresses love it. They demand to take it
home after a movie shoot. And that is when the
regular people see whoa I want, I want what that
celebrity is wearing. Right because before Pancake came out, um,
(16:32):
he came up with this tagline called the Makeup for
the Stars and You, which really linked celebrity and beauty.
Just marketing genius on Max Factor's marketing genius. Now, I
think the idea of linking celebrity and beauty takes us
well into iconic cosmetic number one, which is perfume, specifically
(16:53):
Chanel number five. And the reason it has such a
celebrity connotation is because there's this famous quote from Marle
Monroe that the only thing she wore to bed was
a few drops of Chanelle number five is perhaps one
of the most glamorous perfumes, definitely the best known perfume.
Might say, that's why I put it number one on
the list. I mean, it's a great list. It wins
(17:14):
because not only is the perfume famous, but the bottle's famous.
Andy Warhol would paint it and do screen work of it.
And you know, here's another way to measure time. Every
fifty five seconds a bottle of Chanelle number five is
sold somewhere in the world. Some of you could be like,
I'll meet you in h in a great lash and
two Chanel's yeah, I like it. I'm sure no one
(17:37):
else at all. But it's been around since nine one
and it was developed by Coco Chanel and a perfumer,
Ernest Bow. And what's kind of interesting. And Chanelle had
no interest in doing perfumes. She thought that they were superficial, distasteful.
She thought that these people just need to take a
(17:58):
bath instead of putting on something that disguise their smell. Right,
because at that time, all of the perfumes were pretty
much flower sense, like really really heavy flower sense, with
really ornate bottles and kind of frilly names, and Coco
Chanelle was not really into that. She was not free
through at all. So um, what actually attracts her to
(18:19):
the perfume world is not just that one scent of something,
but rather her perfumer brings her this idea of alde
hides or in synthetic ingredients. And I think it's kind
of interesting that you know, today, I think we're all
about natural products, all natural and this successful perfume is
made from synthetics, but they're synthetics that happened to bring
(18:40):
out the natural smell of something uh more strongly or
more robustly. And the two main fragrances in Sanielle number
five are jasmine and rose. But there was an article
that also points out that the Chanel number five is
the world's first abstract fragrance. You can't really pinpoint what
Chanel number five smells like. It doesn't smell like lilies
(19:02):
or strawberries or what have you. And I think also
when you use the word abstract, I think the other
four cosmetics we've talked about Kristen are very much um
women's centered. They very much talk about what it means
to be a woman, and so did the advertising campaigns
just to distinctly, especially if you think about like fire
and ice, it's like this is a woman, this is
a woman, and Chanelle was pretty much the opposite of that.
(19:23):
Despite the fact that she is such a emblem of
femininity today and even though we just talked about how
you can't pinpoint what Sanelle number five smells like, the
new York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr, I think does
a pretty poetic job at least getting us in the
general direction. So he said that Chanelle number five hits
(19:46):
you like a bank of white hot searchlights washing the
powdered stars at a movie premiere in cans on a
dry summer night. If you haven't smelled it in a while,
do so again. It's great to bathe in that light.
That's really I think the description every woman wants attributed
to her absolutely white hot lights. So that's our list.
(20:07):
That was the five iconic cosmetics that we came up
with after this research. The article is on how stuff
works dot com. But that doesn't mean those are the
only five cosmetics that are iconic. You might have your
own list, and if so, we want to hear it.
Send us an email at mom stuff at how stuff
works dot com. And I think we've got time for
a listener email or to Kristen. Sure well, I've got
(20:30):
one here from Celia about our podcast on chivalry. She said,
when I first started dating, I never felt comfortable with
guys paying for my movie tickets, dinners or drinks. To
solve this, if he paid for dinner, I paid for
the movies, or I tried to leave the tip. After all,
I know how hard I work for my money. I've
treated friends and boyfriends to dinner and they've treated me,
(20:51):
But when on a first date, I always feel very
uncomfortable knowing that he's paying for everything. I've always been
pretty pretty firm about my stance because the idea of
being taken care of by a man for no other
reason than his being a man and my being a
woman makes me so uneasy. Now I'm in a long
term relationship, so it's not really an issue. All of
our money has been pulled together, so if I use
(21:11):
my debit card or he uses his, it comes out
of the same account. All right, Interesting, and I have
one from Marcus and the same basically the same amial
is also sent to us by our listener Jane, and
perhaps many more listeners by the time this one actually airs.
Is about the Celibacy podcast Kristen. All right. And despite
the fact that we, oh, I know where that this
is going. Yeah, despite the fact that we've based the
(21:34):
entire episode on some Seinfeld episodes, we did get a
few factors on Seinfeld all mixed up, and I think
the problem is is that I tend to watch the
reruns they're on, like really late at night, and I
just saw it starts to get jumbled in your dream world.
I probably shouldn't make excuses, but I will read what
our adept Seinfeld listeners let us know. First off, you
(21:55):
stated that George was the one offended by the double dipper,
when actually George was the one double dipping his girlfriend's relative,
a brother, I think, but it may have been a
cousin accused George of double dipping in a funeral and
they ended up finding a knocking over the casket. Secondly,
George becomes celibate because his girlfriend thinks she has mono,
and the process of becoming celibate, he becomes smarter. Elaine
(22:15):
is dating a man who can't pass his medical exam,
so she cuts him off. He passes the exam and
dumps her. The Master of Your Domain episode where they
make a bet about who can withhold from gratify themselves
along as is a completely different episode. So there you go.
Sorry about the Seinfeld errors works, but if you spot
any errors or just have something to say to us,
(22:37):
let us know. It's mom stuff at how stuff works.
Dot com. You can also find us on Facebook and
on Twitter. And we have a blog that's also called
stuff on or told You, and you can find that
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works
dot com. Want more how stuff works, chuck out our
(23:00):
blogs on the housetope works dot com home page. Brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
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